What to do after you eat your feelings

Yesterday, I ate my feelings. Yup.

I haven’t dealt with emotional eating since my dieting days, which has been a while.
But yesterday, I felt overwhelmed, had the Period blues and felt like the work I am putting into my business isn’t enough.
I felt that I’m not enough.

I was hungry around 4pm and my snack didn’t satisfy me, so I got another snack and then another one…
I realized pretty quickly that no amount of food could possibly fill me up, because what I actually needed was to stop working and to rest, but I didn’t allow myself to do that.

So, I kept eating, even though I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Sometimes, other coping mechanisms won’t cut it

I did some journaling to get to the bottom of why I felt this way, but I didn’t feel any better.

I sat down and did some deep breathing, but that also didn’t help. I have a plethora of valuable coping mechanisms in my tool box, which I have built over the years. (Curious to read about them? Click here)

However, I knew that in that moment, I really wanted a comforting meal and a reason to zone out from all my stress and anxious thoughts.

And that is perfectly okay, but you have to actually allow it to be a coping mechanism in your tool box. Not something you end up feeling guilty and ashamed over. That doesn’t sound like a helpful coping mechanism to me.

Once you truly allow yourself to eat and feel comforted, emotional eating becomes one of many coping mechanisms you can choose from at any given moment. Let me explain.

How I went about eating my feelings

I made myself one of my favorite childhood meals (a big bowl of pasta with melted cheese, if you’re German you get me!) and had my favourite ice cream for dessert – salted caramel.
A combination I usually wouldn’t have for dinner, but I really wanted it.

Here is the thing though: I didn’t feel guilty for it at all.
I was present while I ate it, instead of hiding in the kitchen pantry and shoving it in my face like I would have in the past.
It was a coping mechanism that I used in that moment, even though I knew exactly why I felt the way I did.

It’s all about your mindset

I could have gone down the road I used to go down whenever I would eat emotionally in the past.
Feel guilty, keep eating until I feel physically sick, plan to restrict the next day, look through fitness accounts with resentment and jealousy and feel bad about myself.

Instead, I was present while I ate.
I enjoyed it, instead of scarfing it down and feeling ashamed.
It was my coping mechanism of choice at that particular moment.
It only rarely happens these days, because I have so many incredibly helpful coping mechanisms to choose from when I get anxious and overwhelmed. But I also allow myself to eat if I think it will soothe me.

The more shame we feel when we use food to cope, the more isolated we feel and the more likely we are to fall back into old patterns of dieting, restriction and potentially binge eating

Did I feel great after eating all this? Not really.
Did I feel satisfied? Yes.
Is this a better coping mechanism than doing drugs, drinking alcohol or numbing out in some other way? I’m going to say yes.

We are taught to demonize emotional eating and we are taught to feel ashamed for it.
I want to change this narrative in your head, because it only perpetuates the cycle of emotional eating.
You don’t need to make emotional eating your identity.

It’s okay if you also ate emotionally yesterday.
No need to beat yourself up or “make up for it”, because we all know that depriving our bodies only leads to another emotional eating episode, maybe even binge eating.
And guess what, my clothes fit the exact same way today, I didn’t gain 200 pounds overnight.
We deserve to eat and don’t have to “earn” our food!

Eating can be one of many helpful ways to soothe yourself, but only if you do the following:

Rule 1: Don’t be mean to yourself and don’t plan to compensate for the food you ate. Don’t just keep eating until you feel sick, because “you ruined it anyway”. When you find a scratch on your car door, you don’t just drive your car into a tree, because “it’s ruined anyway”, right? It’s the exact same thing with emotional eating. Allow it to happen if need be and then move on.

Rule 2: If Rule 1 isn’t working for you, let me be the little voice in your head that tells your inner mean girl to shut up!

I want to take that shame off your shoulders for you, because I don’t want it to weigh you down.
Make sure you feed your body and be extra kind and gentle with yourself today and always .

I hope I gave you some comfort with this post today.
We all have bad days or weeks.
I am used to being positive all the time, so this week threw me off, but it’s okay.
It will pass and it will pass for you, too.